India’s largest IT services company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), has announced that it will end its remote work practice and wants over 614,000 employees back in the office.
The company´s Chief of Human Resources, Milind Lakkad, emphasized integrating new recruits with the larger TCS workforce as an essential step for them to understand and internalize TCS values.
He explained that this decision was taken because of the need to deepen the value systems within their workforce and a belief in productivity gains coming from co-working.
Lakkad also acknowledged a decline in the overall staff count, attributing it to slower new hiring compared to attrition rates.
TCS has recalibrated its hiring strategies and is honoring all offers for freshers’ intake. However, business requirements may lead to delays in joining dates.
The company had a ’25 by 25′ agenda that aimed to reduce the physical presence in offices to just 25% by 2025
People inquired if this move meant scrapping that agenda, to which Lakkad said that they couldn’t confirm such an assumption. However, N Ganapathy Subramaniam, COO of TCS, suggested that one could deduce this agenda may now be less focused upon given current circumstances.
According to Subramaniam, the high attrition rates over the last three years have made it necessary for all staff members to return back to offices.
Reports say that around 70% of their employees have already started their return to the office.
TCS CFO Samir Seksaria assured stakeholders that bringing people back into offices would not significantly impact profit margins.
The company had maintained its office spaces even during the pandemic period with no plans of giving up on them despite moving towards a work-from-home model when lockdowns were imposed due to Covid-19.
